For the early part of his professional life, Justin Edgar (Clark 1987-1991) worked in investment markets.

After studying finance and economics at Victoria University (alongside an art history degree for ‘fun’), the Collegian built a 16-year career managing investments across New Zealand and Australian companies. The work was challenging, intellectually demanding and, at times, deeply purposeful.

“The group I worked with not only ran New Zealand’s best-performing fund manager of the era, but also took very seriously the stewardship responsibilities that come with looking after other people’s capital,” Justin says.

For Justin, investment was never only about financial returns. At its best, it involved judgment, responsibility and fairness. Advocating for minority shareholder rights and better corporate governance gave him a sense that the work could serve a broader purpose.

“It taught me a lot about responsibility,” he says. “When you are investing on behalf of others, you are constantly weighing risk, uncertainty and consequence. There are no perfect answers. You have to learn to think clearly, act both carefully and decisively, and remain open to being wrong.”

As the years passed, however, Justin found himself asking bigger questions about purpose, learning and human potential.

“Towards the end of my finance career, I felt that much of what remained was simply making money for people,” he says. “There is nothing wrong with that as such, but I needed my work to feel more directly useful.”

In 2010, Justin stepped away from finance and into a very different world.

Together with his wife, who holds a degree in education, he built and ran Little Engines Montessori, a Montessori preschool. For the next eight years, he was immersed in early childhood education.

For Justin, the shift felt less like a departure than a natural progression.

“I’ve always had a good rapport with children and a natural affinity for them,” he says. “Having children of my own also invited me to think more deeply about learning, creativity and how people develop.”

The Montessori philosophy resonated strongly with him, particularly its respect for the child as naturally capable, curious and self-directed.

“It augmented a journey I was already on,” Justin says. “A deeper inquiry into what it means to be human, how we learn, and what sits at the root of our potential.” Those questions did not end when Justin left the preschool sector. Today, his work spans wellbeing, learning, reflection and personal development, with a focus on helping people recover clarity, agency and self-trust in increasingly busy lives.

One area he has become involved in is breathwork, a practice that uses conscious breathing to support nervous system regulation, emotional resilience and greater self-awareness.

For Justin, breathwork connects directly to the questions that have followed him throughout his career. “At its heart, breathwork helps people slow down enough to listen to themselves more clearly,” he says. “When the body settles and the mind quietens, people often find they already have access to a deeper kind of knowing that allows for a surer footing in life.”

He has also recently developed Hey Human, a cognitive reframe tool designed as a reflective space for thought. Rather than telling people what to think, it is intended to help them step back, hear their own thinking more clearly, find a wiser next question and discover a clearer, more empowered path ahead.

Across these different settings – investment, education, wellbeing, writing and reflective technology – Justin sees a consistent thread.

“My personal mission is to create offerings that help people step into the best expression of themselves,” he says. “I’m interested in anything that helps people think more clearly, trust themselves more deeply and live with greater purpose.”

Looking back on his time at St Paul’s, Justin has fond memories of teachers Rod Hamel, Dougal Fraser and Mike Shaw, all of whom left a lasting impression.

What stayed with him was not any single lesson, but the encouragement to think independently.

“They encouraged you to think for yourself and to think outside the box, which, unfortunately, can be rare in education,” Justin says. “That has endured. Rod, in particular, showed me that there did not always have to be one right answer. For an A-type personality, that is quite something to get your head around, and invites a particular kind of humility.”

That lesson proved more valuable than he could have imagined. In finance, in education and in life, Justin has found that certainty is often less useful than open-minded, and open-hearted, curiosity. “The task, it seems to me, is less about having the ‘right’ answer, but more about asking better questions, remaining open, and forever learning.

Today, he continues to explore questions about learning, wellbeing, creativity and human potential. The industries have changed, but the motivation behind them has remained remarkably consistent: to understand what helps people become more fully themselves.